Anna Akhmatova

Oh, what the unconventional words
April’s last days brought to me here.
You knew that in my heart and thoughts,
Is left that Holy Week of fear.

I was not hearing the knells,
Deploring in the azure-river,
But the bronze laugh – for seven days –
Or crying, like the flowing silver. 

And, sadly hiding off my face,
Like before fateful separation,
I was in waiting for the pace
Of her, called since ‘Excruciation’.


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, April 18, 2005
Corrected May-June 2008